In Chicago story headlined "UPDATE 2-Bridgestone settles Texas class-action lawsuit" please read in sixth paragraph, "...of the Provost Umphrey law firm" instead of "...Provost Umphreys." (Corrects spelling).
A corrected version follows.
(Adds more background information, byline)
By Karen Padley
CHICAGO, May 23 (Reuters) - Bridgestone Corp. of Japan's Firestone unit said on Friday it has agreed to settle a Texas class-action lawsuit over its recall of Wilderness AT and ATX tires more than two years ago.
Firestone said details are still being worked out and won't be publicly disclosed until the agreement is approved by a court.
It is the first time that Firestone, of Nashville, Tennessee, has settled a class-action lawsuit stemming from the Aug. 2000 recall of 6.5 million allegedly defective tires. Similar suits are pending in many other states.
Tire owners, who got free replacement tires, tentatively would be compensated for their inconvenience and other costs. The settlement would not affect hundreds of personal-injury lawsuits still pending over rollover accidents involving tread separation.
Federal authorities have linked the tires, mostly installed on Ford Motor Co. Explorers, with 271 deaths and hundreds of injuries. Most of the personal-injury lawsuits have been settled out-of-court.
In Texas, plans tentatively call for the creation of a national settlement class, which would effectively extend the agreement's terms to all U.S. consumers, according to attorney Zona Jones of the Provost Umphrey law firm in Beaumont.
Jones filed the lawsuit in July 2002 on behalf of Terri Sheilds in Jefferson County's 172nd District Court.
Similar lawsuits were filed across the country after a federal appeals court struck down a national class-action certified in Indiana. That decision was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case in January.
No hearing date on the tentative settlement has been set. Jones said he hopes the details can be presented to Judge Donald Floyd within the next 30 to 60 days.
The settlement was first reported Thursday by a Beaumont, Texas, television station.
Ford, also a defendant in the Texas class-action lawsuit, couldn't be immediately reached for comment. It voluntarily recalled another 13 million Firestone tires in May 2001.
Firestone originally had recalled about 14.4 million tires, although only about 6.5 million were thought to be still on the road at the time.
Ford and Firestone each blamed the other for the problems. The two ended their almost century-long business relationship as a result.